IT Rained Unicorns In 2021
Unicorns are raining in India, with an unprecedented funding spree for Indian startups across sectors, resulting in 40 Indian startups to the unicorn club. As of 4th of December, more than $38.4 billion had been raised this year, with several rounds expected to produce Indian unicorns in 2021. Although India has historically and culturally been an entrepreneurially driven nation, there has been a significant shift in the landscape over the last decade and a half. Every company wants to make an impression at work through their volunteerism, philan thropic programmes, and super rewarding missions, and these companies allow you to do just that. What's more, what's better? They're all building their teams of dogooders right now.
The unicorn companies of 2021 are one of many firsts, with the ecosystem witnessing the arrival of the first unicorns in health tech, social commerce, and E-pharmacy. There have been 82 Indian tech startups that have joined the unicorn club to date.
According to reports, at this rate, India will have more than 100 unicorns by 2022, much sooner than the previous estimate of 2023.
Indian Startups That Joined The Unicorn Club This Year
Pharmeasy-: API Holdings had planned a merger between its subsidiary PharmEasy and its rival Medlife in 2020, with the goal of achieving market dominance and joining the unicorn club. After the merger was completed in the latter part of last year, the company was able to achieve one of its objectives: joining the unicorn club. The company raised $323 million in a Series E funding round at a valuation of $1.5 billion. Notably, it is India's first unicorn epharmacy.
Dharmil Sheth and Dr Dhaval Shah founded Pharm Easy in 2015 to serve the chronic care segment, offering services such as teleconsultation, medicine deliveries, and sample collection for diagnostic tests. It connects over 60K brick-and-mortar pharmacies and 4K doctors in 16K postal codes across India.
CRED-: With only INR 57 Lakh ($76K at current exchange rates) in operating revenue in the fiscal year 2020, Kunal Shahled fintech platform CRED joined the unicorn club at a whopping valuation of $2.2 Bn. Deals with ecommerce partners, for example, BigBasket, Dineout, and ixigo are currently being finalised. The features were developed in collaboration with Razorpay and Visa. Before launching the payment feature, Vahdam Teams, The Man Company, Epigamia, and Man Matters, among others, participated in a pilot project with over 30 merchants.
Urban Company-:Urban Company(formerly known as Urban Clap) is a home service company that specialises in beauty and massage, appliance repair, plumbing, carpentry, cleaning, and painting. It was founded in 2014 by , Raghav, Abhiraj BahChandra, and Varun Khaitan. Urban Company, a location based service provider based in Gurugram, is the latest startup to join the unicorn club, with the company reportedly valued at $2 billion in its most recent $188 million Series F funding round. Prosus led the investment, which also included DF International and Wellington Management. While Urban Company has not confirmed the $1 billion+ valuation after Series F, it did raise $75 million in Series E in 2019 at a valuation of $933 million. So far, the company has raised more than $370 million.
ZETA-:Zeta, headquartered in Bengaluru, provides a cloud native neo-banking platform for the issuance of credit, debit and prepaid products. Serial entrepreneurs Bhavin Turakhia and Ramki Gaddipati founded the company in 2015. On May 24, 2021, it joined the unicorn club after raising $250 million in its Series C funding round led by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank. Notably, its valuation has increased by 4.8X since its previous round, which valued the company at $300 million in July 2019.
UPGRAD-:UpGrad a Mumbaibased startup, became India's third edtech unicorn in August 2021, after raising a total of $185 million from Temasek, IFC (International Finance Corporation, a sister organisation of the World Bank Group), and IIFL at a valuation of $1.2 billion. Mayank Kumar Ronnie Screwvala, Phalgun Kompalliand Ravijot Chugh founded upGrad, which offers higher education courses in collaboration with various universities. It claims to have over 2 million registered students. In August of last year, the company raised INR 50 crore in debt from the IIFL Income Opportunities Fund. In April of this year, the edtech business elevated $40 million from IFC at an $850 million valuation.
The unicorn companies of 2021 are one of many firsts, with the ecosystem witnessing the arrival of the first unicorns in health tech, social commerce, and E-pharmacy. There have been 82 Indian tech startups that have joined the unicorn club to date.
According to reports, at this rate, India will have more than 100 unicorns by 2022, much sooner than the previous estimate of 2023.
Indian Startups That Joined The Unicorn Club This Year
Pharmeasy-: API Holdings had planned a merger between its subsidiary PharmEasy and its rival Medlife in 2020, with the goal of achieving market dominance and joining the unicorn club. After the merger was completed in the latter part of last year, the company was able to achieve one of its objectives: joining the unicorn club. The company raised $323 million in a Series E funding round at a valuation of $1.5 billion. Notably, it is India's first unicorn epharmacy.
Dharmil Sheth and Dr Dhaval Shah founded Pharm Easy in 2015 to serve the chronic care segment, offering services such as teleconsultation, medicine deliveries, and sample collection for diagnostic tests. It connects over 60K brick-and-mortar pharmacies and 4K doctors in 16K postal codes across India.
CRED-: With only INR 57 Lakh ($76K at current exchange rates) in operating revenue in the fiscal year 2020, Kunal Shahled fintech platform CRED joined the unicorn club at a whopping valuation of $2.2 Bn. Deals with ecommerce partners, for example, BigBasket, Dineout, and ixigo are currently being finalised. The features were developed in collaboration with Razorpay and Visa. Before launching the payment feature, Vahdam Teams, The Man Company, Epigamia, and Man Matters, among others, participated in a pilot project with over 30 merchants.
Urban Company-:Urban Company(formerly known as Urban Clap) is a home service company that specialises in beauty and massage, appliance repair, plumbing, carpentry, cleaning, and painting. It was founded in 2014 by , Raghav, Abhiraj BahChandra, and Varun Khaitan. Urban Company, a location based service provider based in Gurugram, is the latest startup to join the unicorn club, with the company reportedly valued at $2 billion in its most recent $188 million Series F funding round. Prosus led the investment, which also included DF International and Wellington Management. While Urban Company has not confirmed the $1 billion+ valuation after Series F, it did raise $75 million in Series E in 2019 at a valuation of $933 million. So far, the company has raised more than $370 million.
ZETA-:Zeta, headquartered in Bengaluru, provides a cloud native neo-banking platform for the issuance of credit, debit and prepaid products. Serial entrepreneurs Bhavin Turakhia and Ramki Gaddipati founded the company in 2015. On May 24, 2021, it joined the unicorn club after raising $250 million in its Series C funding round led by Japanese conglomerate SoftBank. Notably, its valuation has increased by 4.8X since its previous round, which valued the company at $300 million in July 2019.
UPGRAD-:UpGrad a Mumbaibased startup, became India's third edtech unicorn in August 2021, after raising a total of $185 million from Temasek, IFC (International Finance Corporation, a sister organisation of the World Bank Group), and IIFL at a valuation of $1.2 billion. Mayank Kumar Ronnie Screwvala, Phalgun Kompalliand Ravijot Chugh founded upGrad, which offers higher education courses in collaboration with various universities. It claims to have over 2 million registered students. In August of last year, the company raised INR 50 crore in debt from the IIFL Income Opportunities Fund. In April of this year, the edtech business elevated $40 million from IFC at an $850 million valuation.
